Wiki Wednesday: The Story of the Stimulus

by Ben Fried on February 11, 2009

Looks like the conference committee made quick work of the stimulus bill, with Harry Reid announcing that a deal has been reached much sooner than expected (perhaps a bit too prematurely). We'll have the specifics on transportation funding later tonight or early tomorrow. For now, relive the stimulus saga with StreetsWiki. Contributor DianaD has added some nice narrative chunks to the entry. Remember stemming the tide of Asphalt Age amendments in the Senate?

demint_inhofe.jpgSenators DeMint and Inhofe were two of the more brazenly backwards policy makers during the stimulus debate.
There were a number of discouraging setbacks for green transportation during the crafting of the Senate bill. First, the Senate version allocates more than $3 billion less to transit compared to the House version. Transit's future was looking even worse when Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator James Inhofe+ (R-OK) proposed an amendment to direct another $50 billion to highway projects. But several Democratic senators refused to support the amendment unless a significant proportion of the funds was shifted to public transit and clean water infrastructure; the amendment never passed. Furthermore, Senator Barbara Mikulski+ (D-MD) offered up an amendment that would give a tax break to new-car buyers to bring more people into dealer showrooms. This amendment passed 71-26.

Those car buyer tax breaks, by the way, appear to have shrunk in conference committee.

This is an important story to tell -- one we'll want to refer back to when the big multi-year transportation bill starts taking shape later this year. If you've got something to add to the entry, type it up while it's fresh in your memory. To write for StreetsWiki, all you have to do is sign up with the Livable Streets Network.